


Embers

by Tassos



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-19
Updated: 2007-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 11:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John bumps into someone from before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Embers

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for background info and _Terra Firma_ to be safe. Written for the Reunion challenge.

John had just stepped outside of the Student Union when he sees her. He thinks it’s a trick of the light, just the hair and maybe the shape of her hips as she walks, but then she turns and does a double take. Stops. John’s escort does a stutter stop around him, looking back and forth uselessly. It only takes John a moment to recover, shaking loose the vision of another blond he loved and lost, a moment for a grin to crack across his face.

“Alex?”

“John?” Alex still has the wet fish look, but blinks rapidly and then takes a delighted step forward. “Oh my God, John. It’s you. I saw you on the news and I heard you were coming, but I thought it was tomorrow.”

“Talk’s tomorrow. Memorial Auditorium.” They do the awkward over-under hug thing and if Alex notices that he doesn’t linger, she doesn’t let on.

“I got tickets.” Alex steps back, and waves a hand toward the ticket office next to the cafeteria, all smiles. She looks good. Still beautiful, hair pulled back, jacket zipped up to ward of the bite in the air. It’s December and John’s still wrapping his head around the fact that Northern California gets downright cold. He wasn’t expecting that. Hell, he’s wasn’t expecting the fact that he accepted the invitation to come and speak here in the first place.

“It’s Stanford. If any kids are shaping the future, it’s those kids,” he told his Dad.

But maybe the real reason is standing right in front of him. The ache is still there, lit by her presence but gentled by time and overshadowed by a greater wound. He and Alex were good together once. Real good.

“Buy you a cup of coffee, Mr. Astronaut?” Alex’s tilts her head, her smile softening with the old words, and John can’t help but breathe a bit easier for them.

“I’d love one.”

Peet’s is just a few steps away. Alex still remembers how he used to take his coffee and John doesn’t tell her that now it’s cream, no sugar. They settle outside in the sun among the fading lunch crowd, almost all of whom take a moment to stare as subtly as possible, which apparently isn’t much, but no one bothers them.

“So John,” Alex says when he takes his first sip. Her eyes meet his and suddenly the fact that his chair’s attached to the table seems very important. “It’s been what, eight years?” she asks as though they are two exes who just bumped into each other. As if he hasn’t spent the last four cycles off the planet. John doesn’t know whether to be grateful or insulted, but when she adds, “What have you been up to?” with that old knowing look in her eye, he laughs.


End file.
